


He Can't Sleep

by 60r3d0m



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Case Fic, Castiel in the Bunker, Dean and Castiel Get Stuck In A Closet, Domestic, Everybody Wants Castiel, Falling Castiel, Giant Ostrich, Hurt Castiel, Hurt Dean, Infidelity, Jealous Dean Winchester, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Protective Dean Winchester, Sharing a Bed, Sick Castiel, Sick Dean, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-27 00:03:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6261181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/60r3d0m/pseuds/60r3d0m
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“I wish I could stand,” Cas says.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Yeah,” Dean says.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Cas holds up his hand, flexes it, stares and then drops it.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“This weakness is unsettling. I can’t—I can’t even hold a pitcher of water, Dean.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dean makes a small sound in his throat, a non-committal hum.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He’s done soaping up Cas’ hair. He grabs the sponge at his side and starts to scrub at Cas’ skin, up along his arms, his neck, down his chest. When he runs it up his legs, to his thighs, Cas shudders and then there’s a hand cupping Dean’s cheek, cold and dripping water and soap, and Dean falters, looks at him for the first time.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Will you sleep with me?” Cas says. “Tonight?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dean swallows.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He says yes.</em>
</p><p>After Lucifer's possession, Castiel stops talking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Can't Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> Very angsty at the beginning but disgustingly fluffy by the end. Tropes include getting stuck in a closet ;D and of course, this story has a happy ending. 
> 
> This was written with the intention of being a coda to 11.14 and 11.15. At the beginning, Castiel is possessed by Lucifer. However, the possession ends fairly quickly and the rest of the story takes place predominately in the bunker. This is more of a recovery + case fic

After it’s all over, after night’s fallen and they’re back from that pier, back from talking about _Cas_ and the _devil—_ and Sam’s told him that Cas chose it willingly and Dean just says _no—not possible_. _God_ , after it _all_ , they go to the bunker and they don’t eat dinner and they don’t say good night. They just go to sleep.

But—

He can’t sleep.

Dean can’t sleep because instead, his bed is cold, and his room is dark, and he’s lying on his stomach, face buried into his pillow, fingers curled tight into the sheets, and there’s an empty spot beside him—there’s an empty spot on the bed that’s too big for him—and tonight, it’s killing him. It’s goddamn killing him. 

In the morning, he pretends to be okay. In the morning, Sam opens up the books and the websites and the—Dean doesn’t even know because he stops paying attention. Dean doesn’t know what Sam talks about, in those minutes in between research, doesn’t know what they might do to expel the monster that’s taken over Cas’ body, because Dean’s too busy grieving, too busy holding a beer bottle to his lips and when the bottle falls, when it crashes and shatters on the library floor, Sam puts his book away and looks at him.

For a long time, Sam just stares.

“I heard you cry,” Sam says.

The walls in the bunker are thin.

 

 

 

It takes a while.

It takes them three weeks or maybe five or maybe six and Dean doesn’t know what’s happening again, because it’s Sam who’s staying up late in the library, it’s Sam who’s doing the readings, doing the _saving Cas_ part, and it’s Dean who’s lying curled up in bed, who’s mumbling prayers through numb lips, and it’s Dean who’s just trying to sleep.

He can’t sleep.

It takes them however many weeks before they argue, Sam and he, and Sam’s not going to let him sleep, not going to let him pray and pain and waste away. Sam drags him out of the bed, and then they’re both in the library, both doing what needs to be done, and it’s just silence from every edge of the world. It’s just silence.

“Amara hasn’t stirred,” Sam says, when even he can’t ignore the quiet anymore, “and we haven’t heard from—”

Sam’s voice seems to disappear.

“Lucifer,” Dean says and he grits his teeth because they can’t keep filtering out the name and pretend that Cas isn’t being held prisoner, as if Dean wasn’t goddamn blind and just never noticed, didn’t notice anything about Cas until it was too late. “We haven’t heard from Lucifer.”

“Actually,” Sam says and his eyes are soft and his voice is soft and he’s giving Dean a gentle smile. “I was going to say Crowley.”

“Oh,” Dean says.

 

 

 

It’s a couple of days after that. It’s maybe two days or ten days or two months after that but they’re still digging up what they can find, still scanning tomes and tomes of useless crap—just because Sam thinks that he’s spotted an ancient word for the _devil_ in some dead language on the page of some book—and it’s that day that Dean’s surfing the news—just looking for the sake of looking—and he comes across an article about a wrestler’s funeral and he doesn’t know why but he says to Sam, “We have to go.”

Sam doesn’t say no.

 

 

 

It’s a case. It turns out to be a case even when Dean didn’t mean to find one because the dead seem to follow Dean. They go to pay their respects, go to the wrestler’s funeral—a champion of the ring that they admired when they were younger—and after he’s buried, of course there are people being murdered (maybe it’s a vengeful spirit).

It’s time to investigate.

There’s a wrestling match being held in the deceased’s honour so they go to that, too. Sam’s looking at him, warily, worriedly, while Dean smiles harder than he’s smiled in months as he loudly cheers on his ring favourite, and Sam laughs when Dean laughs but there’s something unnerving about it all, the way that Dean is just too enthusiastic, the way that Dean won’t stop grinning like a goddamn maniac.

Dean’s gone off the deep end.

 

 

 

Dean drinks.

He drinks a lot (but not so much that it’s too much) but there are other things, other pieces that clue Sam in.

Dean’s gone off the deep end.

A wrestler winks in Dean’s direction and Dean seems to swoon, seems to flirt and smirk blatantly—in a way that Dean never does towards other men because he’s always performing for Sam—and Sam watches and Sam watches and Sam’s maybe a little scared.

After the case, they go on more hunts.

They don’t have anything else to do.

 

 

 

It happens soon after they find a spell—one that promises them that they’ll be able to circumvent Cas’ will and eject the devil from his body—but when it happens, it might as well have been forever because that’s how long Dean’s been waiting for it. It happens in an old church and they’ve got him trapped, they’ve got the devil in a circle of burning holy oil, and Lucifer’s entertained, because he’s seen Dean’s eyes and he’s seen how desperate Dean looks.

“Cas,” Dean says and he keeps calling and calling, but it’s only the devil that’s beaming back at him, and Cas never shows, never seems to even simmer beneath the grin that Lucifer wears so proudly, because Lucifer’s in full control and he won’t relinquish it any time soon.

Sam’s spell doesn’t work.

The wind starts howling outside. A draught forces its way into the rundown church, and there are papers flying about, dust whirling around them and Lucifer’s still cackling because it’s all working out in his favour.

Soon Lucifer’s extinguished the circle of holy fire, and he’s free and loose in the church—the devil’s power unleashed in his Father’s temple—and Sam and Dean are on their knees, trying to crawl away as Lucifer promises them swift deaths.

Lucifer wraps his hand around Dean’s throat.

Dean’s body rises from the ground and then he’s pinned to the wall by Lucifer’s hand.

Dean chokes.

He chokes out Cas’ name and prays.

 _Cas. Cas. Cas. Cas_.

There’s a growl from Lucifer and Lucifer’s writhing, his face contorting with rage as Dean squeezes his eyes shut and keeps rasping out Cas’ name, keeps trying to call to him even when Lucifer’s fingers are trying to crush the life out of him.

Lucifer starts shaking.

Dean falls and from afar he hears Sam shout and then Dean’s lying crumpled at the altar that is Lucifer’s feet. Dean tries to get up, and his eyes are still shut tight because the image of the devil is still out there, somewhere beyond the safety of his eyelids, and he reaches out with his hands, tries to push against the wall for leverage so that he can get up and run, but his hands meet fabric and it’s not the wall. It’s the devil’s knees.

He opens his eyes and looks up.

Lucifer’s still towering above him and he’s still convulsing, but then with a shudder, Lucifer’s body stills and when Lucifer gazes down at him, it’s not him—it’s Cas.

Cas stares at him with wide, shocked eyes.

“Cas, come back,” Dean begs then, and Cas moves, reaches for Dean and removes Dean’s hands from his knees and holds Dean’s hands in his own.

“Cas, come back,” Dean pleads again and his voice is so hoarse, and it’s like Lucifer expelled the air out of his lungs because Dean’s voice is barely working, is crippled and crippled and crippled and it’s hurting to use it, hurting to talk.

“Throw him out,” Dean says and he pulls his hands out of Cas’, wraps his arms instead around Cas’ legs, clings to him and embraces those legs and he’s not letting go. He’s not letting Cas let the devil back in. “You’re strong. You’re strong so throw him out. Throw him out.”

Cas just stares at him.

“Come on,” Dean urges and he’s so fucking needy, feels as if he’s hovering on the fine line between life and death. “What are you waiting for, Cas? Throw him out.”

But there’s no light. There’s nothing. Cas tenses. Lucifer’s fighting, trying to regain control of the vessel.

They’re running out of time.

Cas just stares at him.

Cas just stares at him while Dean hugs his legs, and Dean’s still begging, still begging, and Cas isn’t doing anything.

“I’m sorry,” Dean croaks because maybe that’s why Cas won’t do it, maybe that’s why Cas won’t banish the devil because maybe Cas is angry, maybe Cas thinks that being an instrument in this war is all that he’s worth to Dean.

Cas quivers then, and his legs seem to go slack, and then Cas is falling, crashing down right onto the ground, falling on his back, and Dean’s still got his arms wrapped tight around Cas’ legs.

Cas pushes off of the ground, sits there on the church’s floor and Dean lets go of Cas’ legs then, crawls instead between the angel’s thighs and cradles Cas’ face.

For a moment, Lucifer’s twisted leer flickers through but then it’s gone and Cas is in control again.

“I need you,” Dean says, and his voice is wretched now and he can't even hide it anymore. He holds Cas’ gaze, eyes that still only stare at him with shock, some peculiar, peculiar shock as Dean cups his face and Dean doesn’t know why Cas is looking at him like that.

“Talk to me,” Dean begs and he removes one hand from Cas’ face and runs his fingers through Cas’ hair, tries to smooth away the strange chaos that Lucifer has brought to the angel’s hair during his possession. “Cas, please. Please.”

Cas doesn’t say a goddamn thing.

Sam’s there with them. He comes then, limping from the other side of the church because Lucifer tossed him into the pews hard enough that the wood splintered. Sam takes his place on the floor by Cas’ side and then he yanks at Cas’ arm (too roughly, Dean thinks) and Sam’s talking so quickly and Dean’s not hearing any of it, because he’s still looking at Cas.

“Revoke your consent,” Sam says just as Cas’ body spasms and Lucifer tries to take the reins again. “Cas, come on. It’s not worth it. We’ll find another way.”

Cas just stares at him.

Then Cas pulls away, shuns the touch that Dean’s hands offer him and Dean drops his hands to Cas’ thighs, grips him there so tightly and tries to keep the angel from leaving him.

Cas closes his eyes, as if he can’t bear looking at Dean anymore, can’t bear looking at the man who’s sitting in the space between his legs and Cas withdraws even more, pulls his legs to his chest and moves until there’s distance between them, too much distance.

Cas opens his eyes, and he’s staring at the hunter again, looking pained, looking burdened and he finally says, “ _Dean_.”

“I’m here,” Dean promises, and he can’t help himself. He reaches for Cas again, crawls towards him and wraps his arms around the angel this time, and he embraces Cas, pulls him in as close as he can and rocks him.

Cas shudders.

Sam’s speaking, quietly this time, persuading Cas to let the devil go because it seems like Cas will finally listen.

“I need a knife,” Cas says, muffled voice rumbling into the sleeve of Dean’s jacket where his mouth is pressed, and then he’s trying to get away again, trying to pull out of Dean’s arms.

Sam watches the two of them with a guarded expression.

“For what?” Sam says but he’s already pulling it out of his pocket.

“A sigil,” Cas says, “for—”

“I’ll do it,” Sam says and he draws blood from his palm, starts to smear the angel banishing symbol onto the wall.

Cas sighs, a heavy exhale of breath, and he’s stirring again, trying to move away from Dean.

“Cas,” Dean says and he grabs Cas’ wrist but the angel isn’t looking at him anymore and he pulls away from Dean’s arms abruptly.

Cas stands up.

“When you eject Lucifer, I’ll activate the sigil,” Sam says, “but won’t it send you away, too?”

“I’m sorry,” Cas says and he lets the devil take control once more.

Dean’s shouting then, shouting _no, no, no_ , but Lucifer’s the one that’s hearing his cries and Lucifer’s the one that’s sweeping towards him—not Cas. Sam’s scrambling for Dean, telling Dean to move but Dean’s crawling towards Lucifer, grabbing the devil’s legs, hugging them again, and he’s praying so hard, praying for Cas to come back.

Lucifer’s laughter rings with his delight.

“Castiel doesn’t want you, Dean,” Lucifer says. “He _chose_ this. He chose it _again_.”

And it’s like before. It’s like before because Lucifer’s got his hand around Dean’s throat again, is lifting him high into the air while Dean’s pleading cries of _Cas, Cas, Cas_ keep slipping through his last lungful of air, except this time, Cas isn’t seeking control of his body again, and Cas isn’t fighting to save Dean.

“I love you,” Dean says then.

For a second, Lucifer’s fingers falter. Dean’s body hits the carpeted aisle of the church floor. His head knocks against the sharp edge of a pew. Blood erupts from his forehead.

“I love you,” Dean says again and he goes to Lucifer, crawls and clambers towards Lucifer who is now _Cas_. “I love you.”

Cas’ face twists with emotion then, and he’s distraught and he’s reaching for Dean, one hand searching for Dean’s own and Dean gives it to him, lets Cas grasp his hand as he collapses at the angel’s feet.

Dean’s vision is tainting, with a blackness that threatens to take him under, and his cheek grazes Cas’ shoe as dizziness overwhelms him.

He’s still hanging onto Cas’ hand.

“Love you,” Dean says again, throaty, the taste of tears in his mouth and the thickness of blood obscuring his right eye. “I need you, Cas. Please. I need you.”

Dean’s eyes seem to roll in their sockets, a brief loss of control as a piercing pain drills through his skull.

He loses time.

When he’s aware again, nothing’s changed and Cas is still standing holding his hand while he’s lying sprawled on the church floor.

“Save him,” Cas says. “Sam, save him.”

There’s a screeching sound then, a noise that makes the pain in his head ripen, and Dean doesn’t know it then but it's him, screaming his lungs out, wanting Cas to stay.

But Cas goes.

Dean’s still begging, still begging even when Lucifer returns, and Lucifer kicks him then, his boot making contact with Dean’s head and that’s all the damage that he can inflict because Sam presses his hand to the sigil on the blood-soaked wall and in a blinding flash of white light, Lucifer’s been vanquished.

 

 

 

It changes him.

It changes everything he does after Cas abandons him and Sam watches as it changes him.

He stops drinking.

He stops trying to sleep.

He can’t sleep.

Sam wants to ask him, wants to know what changes it for him, what it’s done to him to see Cas leave him again but Sam doesn’t. Instead, Sam just observes how Dean pores over textbooks in the bunker library with an unfathomable fixation. Sam sees how Dean takes paper to pen and jots down anything and everything. Sam sees how Dean devours knowledge like Dean’s never bothered or wanted to devour it before.

Dean doesn’t look for a way to pull the devil out of Cas.

Dean looks for a way to obliterate Amara.

 

 

 

It all happens on Thursday.

Dean doesn’t know which Thursday—time became inconsequential to him a long time ago—but he only knows that it is a Thursday.

On Thursday, God returns to Earth. On Thursday, God rides in a vessel whose owner they used to call Chuck but can’t anymore because Chuck died and God’s only hitching a ride in his corpse. On Thursday, God gives Dean His power. On Thursday, Dean kills the Darkness.

That day, Sam annihilates Lucifer.

That day, Cas kills God.

They don’t know what the world will look like after this. They don’t know if they’ve made it better or made colossal mistakes. But that day, Dean finds himself crouching in the dirt beside Cas’ lifeless body and there are big black wings scorched into the earth.

Dean’s terrified.

Cas wakes up.

Cas wakes up because it’s Satan’s wings that are marking the devil’s demise.

Dean weeps and keels over, lays his head onto Cas’ chest and says _thank god, thank_ _god_ over and over again to Cas’ heart even though those words are meaningless after what Cas did to his Father.

 

 

 

“Why’d you leave me?” Dean wants to say but he doesn’t because Cas is fast asleep in the backseat of the Impala. Killing God has left him weak. Almost human.

Sam tells him that it’s been 666 days.

“That’s how long Cas was possessed,” Sam says and maybe it’s the universe’s biggest joke.

666 days.

 

 

 

At the bunker, they don’t talk. Every time Dean sees him, there’ll be a lump in his throat and he’ll swallow and he’ll swallow but it’ll never go down.

Cas sleeps in Dean’s bed.

Dean sleeps in a chair in the kitchen.

But—

He can’t sleep.

 

 

 

“Talk to him,” Sam says.

Dean says, “How?”

 

 

 

He knocks on his door.

Dean stands in front of the door to his own bedroom for a long time and stalls and then when he can’t stall anymore, he knocks on his door.

Cas doesn’t answer.

Dean clenches his jaw and leaves.

 

 

 

“Did you talk to him?” Sam says.

 

 

 

It’s midnight or maybe a little bit after that. He could look at the clock. It’s hanging right above the kitchen table. But that would require Dean lifting his head from the same table where he’s been slumped down at all night so Dean doesn’t move.

He can’t sleep.

The kitchen is chilly. Dean can hear a rustling sound, and the padding of feet on tiles. Dean knows that it’s him before Cas knows that Dean is even there.

Dean opens his eyes to look at him.

Cas is standing in the kitchen, Dean’s _dead guy_ robe wrapped tight around his form. Maybe Cas is too human to sense Dean’s presence because he shivers in the room and opens the refrigerator but makes no indication that he knows that Dean is there.

For a long while, Dean watches him.

For a long while, he watches as Cas opens a jar of peanut butter and sticks in a spoon and maybe he’s comfort eating because Cas doesn’t even look for bread. He just starts to shovel the butter into his mouth.

He looks guilty as he does it.

When he sees Dean sitting at the kitchen table, he drops the plastic jar.

He drops his spoon.

The peanut butter sticks to the tiles.

“Hey,” Dean says.

Cas doesn’t say anything.

 

 

 

“He wanted to sleep in my room,” Sam tells him over breakfast the next morning. They’re in the library. Cas never joins them but he’s been eating. Sam tells him that. “I told him that I’d take the couch but he said that it’d be uncomfortable for me. He’s sorry that he’s been hogging your room for so long. He’s wondering why you don’t take the couch. He said that he saw you trying to sleep in one of the kitchen chairs.”

“Why doesn’t he just ask me?” Dean snaps.

 

 

 

He’s not drunk enough to stumble down the stairs but he ends up stumbling, anyway. It takes him a moment. It takes him a long moment to dig around in his pockets for his keys but he finds them and then he opens the bunker door.

At two in the morning, he expects the library to be deserted but it’s not. Sam’s there, squinting at his screen while he watches video guides for conversing in American Sign Language.

“Where were you?” Sam says.

“Bar,” Dean grunts.

“Take the couch tonight,” Sam says.

But Dean doesn’t want the couch.

 

 

 

He must be drunk and he must not have realized it.

He must be out of his goddamn mind because it’s 2:00 a.m. and he’s swinging open the door of his bedroom, to the bedroom where Cas has been hiding in for much too long now, and he’s stepping inside, just wants to hear Cas’ voice because it’s been almost two years since Lucifer first possessed Cas, and now Cas is finally goddamn free.

He doesn’t know how drunk he is.

But he’s drunk enough to be stupid.

 

 

 

He can’t sleep.

When he slips into the bed beside Cas, he can’t sleep.

Cas’ breath tickles his face.

Cas doesn’t know that Dean’s there.

Cas curls up right against him, seeking Dean’s warmth in his dreams. When Cas snores, Dean smiles and Dean brushes his thumb across Cas’ cheek.

Dean wants to kiss him.

But—

He can’t sleep.

 

 

 

In the morning, Dean wakes up to Cas’ absence.

 

 

 

“Where did he go?” he asks Sam.

Sam yawns.

“Cas wanted some air,” Sam says.

Dean’s heart thumps hard in his dread.

 

 

 

He’s gone.

 

 

 

“We’ll find him, Dean. He can’t have gone far.”

 

 

 

“Why?” Sam asks. “Why would he have left like that?”

Sam pauses.

“Dean, he doesn’t have anyone else.”

 

 

 

They find him.

 

 

 

It’s raining hard when they find him.

Cas’ teeth are chattering.

He’s sitting on a bench at a bus stop.

He doesn’t have any money.

When he sees Dean approaching, he closes his eyes and looks pained.

 

 

 

Sam drives the Impala back to the bunker.

In the backseat, Cas and Dean sit.

“I won’t do that again,” Dean says and swallows. “My room—it’s yours.”

Cas rests his head against the window. Cas doesn’t acknowledge Dean’s vow.

Sam drives a little slower.

For a month, Dean keeps himself out of Cas’ sight.

 

 

 

“What did I do wrong?”

Dean’s begging for an answer. Begging for Cas to talk to him. Cas’ breath hitches in his throat. Cas almost says something.

But he doesn’t.

He pushes out of his chair and darts out of the kitchen. He’s wearing Dean’s bathrobe again. It billows out behind him like his old trench coat.

Sam puts his spoon down. He wipes his mouth with a napkin.

“You pushed him,” Sam says. “You have to take it slow, Dean. He was possessed by _Lucifer_ —”

“He came to breakfast,” Dean says.

“Yeah, for the _first_ time, Dean. For the first time with _you_ in here and the first thing that you said to him was—”

“What did I do wrong?”

 

 

 

Dean locks the door behind him. He turns on the shower. He presses a hand to his mouth. He presses harder. He sinks down to the ground. His head bumps the back of the bathroom door.

He tries to breathe.

He heaves.

He drops his hand from his mouth and looks around him. The mirror is steaming up.

He takes long breaths.

The long breaths become shorter.

He’s gasping.

He can’t breathe.

He can’t breathe.

He presses his hand to his mouth again and muffles his cries.

 

 

 

Sam’s helping him. Sam’s helping him spread fresh sheets over some old mattress because it’s been too long that Dean’s spent every night in the stiff kitchen chair and Sam tells him that it’s time to prepare a new room—one of any of the many extra rooms in the bunker—and it’s for Cas, and it’s going to be Cas’, and it’s going to be where Cas lives out the rest of his life maybe because whatever happened after God’s death left him human enough to need to sleep and eat and breathe.

“He can have my room, Sammy,” Dean says but Sam shakes his head and says no.  

 

 

 

Cas doesn’t end up moving from Dean’s bedroom. He doesn’t because when Dean finally braves walking in, he finds Cas tossing and turning in bed delirious with a fever.

They don’t know how he got sick. They only know that it’s some unnatural illness because Cas hasn’t left the bunker for a long time so Sam starts researching angelic illnesses.

Dean sits in a chair by Cas’ bedside.

 

 

 

“He’s falling,” Sam announces over the next morning’s breakfast. “I don’t know the specifics but if this book is anything to go by, when the fever passes, the last bit of angel left in him will be gone. He’ll be pretty much human.”

Like them.

 

 

 

Dean hates watching him hurt.

He wants to do something. He wants to grab the Tylenol from the medicine cabinet and ease the fever but Sam says that they can’t do anything but let it pass—it’s supernatural in nature, after all.

So Dean sits by Cas’ bedside. So Dean listens because Cas sometimes talks in his disorientation and he only ever talks about saving Dean.

Dean doesn’t know if he wants to listen.

But he listens because—

He can’t sleep.

 

 

 

Maybe Dean’s goddamn foolish because night falls and Cas is shivering violently and then Dean’s aching and then Dean’s tired so he gets out of the chair and he goes to the bed and he slips in under the sheets and he shouldn’t do it because he told Cas that he wouldn’t but he _does_.

As soon as he does, Cas gravitates towards him, seeks the warmth that Dean’s body heat provides and then Dean finds himself holding Cas, finds himself with Cas’ cheek pressed to Dean’s chest, and maybe Dean’s even more foolish because after that night, Dean sleeps in the same bed with Cas for the six more days that it takes for Cas to fall.

On the seventh night, Cas’ fever breaks.

On the seventh night, Cas wakes up and he’s not delirious anymore and when he realizes that Dean’s got his arms around him, Cas jolts and pushes away.

But he says something then.

He finally talks to Dean.

“What are you doing here?” he says.

 

 

 

They start sleeping in the same bed every night. They start inching closer in the darkness until touch between them becomes the norm. One night, Dean presses his lips to Cas’ neck and Cas sighs and entwines their fingers together under the blanket.

But they still don’t talk about what they need to talk about.

They still don’t talk at all.             

They kiss. They share a single first kiss at four in the morning because Cas wakes up panting and afraid from some nightmare and Dean’s impulsive and that’s what he does to comfort him. They don’t kiss for another eleven days but the next time it happens, Dean’s just finished brushing his teeth when Cas tackles him from behind and they fall onto the bed.

“What—” Dean gasps but Cas kisses him so furiously and thoroughly that Dean finds himself just hanging on for the ride.

“Cas seems to be in a better mood these days,” Sam will remark, three months later, as if he hasn’t noticed where Dean’s been spending his nights. “Said four whole words to you today.”

(Where’s the peanut butter?)

That’s what they do. That’s what Dean does. They kiss and touch and sleep in the same bed but they still don’t talk, not much, and Dean doesn’t know why it’s like that, why it has to be like that, but after Lucifer’s possession, Cas has gone quiet. With Sam, Cas struggles but makes conversation, still is able to speak. With Dean—

Nothing.

Nothing because there’s no chatter. Nothing because Cas seems to even fight to look Dean in the eyes anymore. Nothing because touching Cas and Cas touching him feels like wading through dense water that tries to drown Dean and Dean can’t find a place of safety, because safety came in the form of Cas’ eyes before, came in the form of Cas’ reassuring gaze and words and now they’re—

Nothing.

Maybe it’s these emotions that make it feel like they get out of hand. One night, they’re rolling around in the sheets, a playful tussle, and they’re sucking bruises into each other’s skin, and then Dean’s groaning and Cas is grinding and Cas is discarding his garments, is clawing away at Dean’s—for the first time—and soon they’re going to be skin on skin, and soon they’re going to taste and touch each other like never before, but then Dean freezes because he can’t do it anymore.

It’s sudden.

It’s unforeseeable until it happens.

But it happens.

So Dean pulls away.

Dean moves his mouth out of the way, tilts his head back and Cas’ lips graze his jaw instead and then Cas realizes that something’s changed.

“Why’d you leave me?” Dean says and his voice cracks and he says it because it’s at that moment that he just has to goddamn _know_. “Why’d you go back to Lucifer when I—when I fucking begged you, Cas? When—”

And there’s pain then, fresh pain, and it hurts even worse when Cas pulls off of him and retreats and doesn’t answer Dean’s question. He just says, “I don’t want us to share this bed anymore,” and he pulls the sheets over his form and waits for Dean to leave.

But Dean doesn’t leave.

“What did I do wrong?” Dean asks and when he asks, a tremor seems to run up Cas’ spine and Cas makes a small choking sound, but Dean can’t see his face because now Cas has his back turned to Dean and maybe Cas is just trying to hide.

Dean reaches out then, places a hand on Cas’ shoulder and intends to make him turn around, but he doesn’t jerk Cas towards him in the end. He just finds his hand going slack on Cas’ arm.

Cas is breathing harshly, as if he’s been running and not just lying in bed, and when Dean moves his hand from Cas’ shoulder and turns to flick on the lamp at their bedside, Cas says, “No. Turn it off.”

Dean turns it off.

Dean sits there with his knees drawn up to his chest and stares out into the blackness of the room while Cas lies next to him like a dying man.

“I…” Dean says.

He can’t say it again. He’s not going to confess that again.

But maybe he’s a liar even to himself because he tries to say it regardless.

“I told you that I loved you, Cas.”

Cas’ ragged breathing ceases. It’s abrupt. He’s holding his breath.

“I told you,” Dean says and his tongue is thick in his mouth and the grief is waiting to pour out of his eyes. “So why—why’d you leave me?”

“I can’t talk to you,” Cas says.

“Talk to me,” Dean says.

“I won’t,” Cas says.

There’s a long silence then, one that threatens to swallow the room, and then Dean’s aware of how late it is and maybe he’s just giving up because he crawls in under the sheets and he just tries to sleep.

But—

He can’t sleep.

Hours pass. Long, drawn out seconds and minutes that make each one of those hours seem like years, and then the bed creaks, and Dean feels Cas’ warmth shift closer.

“Are you awake?” Cas says and when Dean mumbles, Cas’ lips press a kiss to Dean’s cheek, Cas’ arms pull Dean in and Dean just goes. He just goes and buries his face into the crook of Cas’ neck, and Cas holds him, sweeps the hair away from his face, and they stay like that for the night.

In the morning, Cas doesn’t look at him.

 

 

 

“Tell me,” Dean wants to demand of Cas, wants answers, wants them over breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Wants them when he drives Cas to the nearest convenience store to settle a craving for potato chips and chocolate milk. Wants them when he wakes up in the mornings and Cas is still asleep beside him (it doesn’t happen often).

Wants them, wants answers every second just to soothe the ache in his chest.

Today, it’s winter again. It’s been so many winters but tonight, it’s the coldest winter, so cold that even Sam wants to sleep with Cas because extra body heat is the only thing that’ll keep them from becoming flesh icicles in this bunker—except Dean’s not having that because Dean’s irrationally irritated tonight—and he can’t take Sam’s joke so he just snaps, “You can’t sleep with Cas.”

Sam laughs.

For Sam’s laugh, Dean slams the door in his face, locks it to be extra spiteful, and Cas is just sitting quietly in bed, and after all this time, Dean knows that that means that Cas wants to talk—just a few words—and that’s all that Dean can look forward to.

Maybe it’s the cold and the shivering that makes him so irritable today. Maybe it’s the fact that tonight marks five years since Lucifer’s Cas possession. Maybe it’s because it’s been long enough, sleeping in the same bed, kissing, touching but not talking, not talking because somehow Lucifer’s managed to make Dean’s life like this from even beyond the grave.

Maybe it’s all this that makes Dean hesitate and stall before getting into bed tonight.

He doesn’t turn the lamp off when he does.

The lamp—the light—it’s crucial to Cas. It’s crucial because Cas doesn’t touch Dean unless it’s under the cover of darkness and in moments like these, moments where Cas feels vulnerable and sits in bed waiting for Dean to accompany him, the lamp has to be out before Cas can put out his thoughts.

So Dean doesn’t turn the lamp off tonight.

So Dean settles into bed but he doesn’t lie down. He just sits. He just waits.

Cas doesn’t say anything.

But Cas shivers because their bodies are apart.

“You cold?”

Cas takes a moment to answer. He always takes a moment before answering Dean’s questions. Sometimes, he doesn’t answer at all.

“It’s snowing,” Cas says finally so Dean opens his arms wide and says, “C’mere.”

The lamp’s light is still painting its yellowness across the walls.

Cas doesn’t move.

Dean’s angry but he’s even guiltier so it doesn’t take him more than a heartbeat to switch the light off.

“C’mon,” Dean says and this time, Cas comes.

After that, there’s the rustling of sheets in the dark. After that, it’s them lying down and finding a way to be comfortable with each other. It’s Dean pulling Cas in, it’s Dean wrapping an arm around Cas’ waist and searching for that perfect angle where Cas’ back can line up snug against Dean’s chest, where Dean can press a kiss to the back of Cas’ neck with the laziest nudge of his own head.

It’s not always that Dean holds Cas. Sometimes it’s Dean who has to search for the peace of Cas’ reassuring touch, who just wants to be held and it’s on bad nights that it happens, nights with nightmares, and nights where Dean wonders why Cas just stopped talking to him years ago.

Dean wants Cas to hold him tonight but tonight, Cas needs him more.

“God, you’re cold,” Dean mutters when they’re in place, when he’s got Cas wrapped up tight against him, and he rubs a hand up and down Cas’ arm, tries to warm him up.

Cas just shudders at the touch.

Cas just finds Dean’s hand and holds it in his own.

For a long time, Dean waits. For a long time, he waits for Cas to say whatever’s on his mind but it doesn’t happen and Dean wonders if he misread Cas’ body language tonight, if maybe Cas hadn’t been waiting for him to talk, or if maybe Dean’s stubbornness with the goddamn lamp might’ve scared Cas off.

It makes Dean feel guilty.

Dean starts talking then, starts talking about his childhood because Dean’s noticed that whenever he does that, Cas will open up to him, too. So he rubs small circles over Cas’ hand with his thumb. So he pauses to kiss Cas’ ear or neck as he talks and he waits and waits for the tension to leave Cas’ body—Cas’ little tell-tale sign that he’s going to say something to Dean soon enough—but Cas isn’t relaxed just yet.

Dean doesn’t remember how the conversation gets there—his one-sided conversation because Cas is only listening because that’s all he ever does—but he ends up talking about bars and drinks and chicks and when Dean mentions how he hasn’t brought a woman home in years, Cas’ nails seem to dig into Dean’s hand and he’s distressed and he’s going to shift away from Dean; Dean just knows it.

“Hey,” he says and he nudges Cas to turn, nudges him until Cas has his cheek pressed to Dean’s chest, until Cas’ fingers are fisted into his T-shirt. “I’m not bringing a girl home.”

But even at Dean’s reassurance, Cas doesn’t seem convinced. Dean can feel Cas’ breath. It’s quickening and shaky, hot against Dean’s neck. Dean holds Cas tighter, wraps both his arms around the ex-angel and rolls them over, rolls them until Dean is flat on his back and Cas is lying on top of Dean with his head resting on Dean’s chest.

Dean rubs Cas’ back.

“It’s been years, Cas,” he says. “Years and I’ve been with you. I’m—I’m not bringing a girl home. I’m not bringing anyone home.”

“Why?”

Cas’ voice is a whisper in the dark. Dean clenches his jaw when he feels his shirt dampen, wet where Cas’ cheek is pressing against his chest.

“I don’t even talk to you,” Cas says. “I keep you like my shadow.”

Dean swallows.

It’s true.

“I don’t care,” Dean says but his heart aches. “I-I don’t.”

It’s not true.

For a long time, all Dean’s aware of is the silence of their misery and the wetness of Cas’ tears making the fabric of his shirt thick and heavy.

“You wanna get married?” Dean says then and it’s as sudden as everything else that happens with them. For a moment, Dean thinks that he’s joking to himself, joking when he asks Cas, but then something within Dean—a knot in his stomach, a knot that’s been there for much too long—seems to grow even tighter.

He’s aching.

He’s pining. He’s pining so goddamn hard and he wants this and he wants Cas and he wants Cas to say yes.

But it’s dangerous territory.

He tries to pass it off as teasing. “If we get married, then you don’t gotta worry about me bringing anyone home.”

It hurts when Cas chooses not to talk this time.

The silence beats Dean down.

He tries not to think about it.

Cas moves off of Dean’s body. He goes to lie down on the farthest edge of the bed. It’s time to sleep. That’s what Cas is telling him.

But Dean—

He can’t sleep.

The silence wears him down.

He’s pining. Pining. Pining.

He needs an answer.

“Say something,” Dean says.

“Say something,” Dean pleads.

 

 

 

Tomorrow, there’s no noise.

There’s no sound.

Dean didn’t think that he would ever hear its noise but now it happens and there’s no sound and Dean wishes that there could have been sound.

But there’s no sound.

And it’s done.

 

 

 

Dean drives them home. Cas sits in the backseat, curled up against the window. It looks like he’s sleeping but he’s not.

There’s no one in the passenger seat.

“Know you’re hungry but gonna be home soon, baby,” Dean mumbles and clenches the steering wheel harder, as if that can coax the Impala’s gas tank to stay full. He should’ve filled her up on the way to the office but when the nerves had struck, his memory had seemed to go, too.

When they get home, the bunker’s the same (there should have been noise, Dean thinks). Sam’s sitting in the library, browsing through news articles. Dean plops down into a seat, nudges an empty stool into position beside him. He wants Cas to stay but Cas doesn’t look at him and he brushes past the two brothers, making a beeline for the kitchen.

“Found a case,” Sam says, as if hunting’s something that they still do on the regular. But they don’t. They just pass the cases on, to younger and fitter hunters, and they only do the occasional salt and burn if it’s local.

“It’s not local,” Sam tells him, “but it’s tricky.”

So they have to go.

Sam discusses it for a bit, ends up discussing it a lot, and it’s decided that it’s time again to don their FBI duds (last time was a year and a half ago). Cas walks in then, takes a seat beside Sam, a seat that seems too far from Dean’s side.

“Cas, you coming?” Sam says and Cas talks freely.

Cas is coming.

“Maybe you should stay home,” Dean says.

 

 

 

The case leads them to a pub where the patrons are rambunctious and the food is cheesy, but whenever Cas remembers that he’s hungry, he’s suddenly _starving_ , so they have more than one purpose to be in there.

“When’s the last time you ate?” Dean asks, and he’s tense and he’s tired and the bar’s too young. He leads Cas through the crowd with a hand on his shoulder and when they’re seated, Cas says, “Yesterday.”

“When Sam was telling us about the case?”

Cas doesn’t answer but that’s answer enough.

“Jesus.”

It’s nothing new—it’s old—but Cas’ eating habits dig deeper now, make Dean sweat a little harder in his worry, and Dean doesn’t know how it changes him, how his need to protect Cas can intensify like that with the scrawl of a pen, in the span of hours, because now it means something in people’s eyes, and maybe that’s what Dean’s protecting, too.

Sam joins them a few minutes later, just as Dean’s loosening up Cas’ tie because Cas looks like he could faint (“You wanna go back to the motel, Cas?), and Sam’s arrival draws the attention of the waitress to them. The waitress is flirty, flirty and forward (maybe it brings in the tips), and she has an eye for Cas that makes Dean fidget in his seat.

“You sure you don’t want anything else, agent?” she says and she trails a hand down Cas’ tie suggestively, thumbing at the disheveled collar of Cas’ shirt, buttons just undone minutes ago by Dean’s worried fingers.

“You sure you don’t wanna get arrested?” Dean snaps and it’s enough to make her skitter away while Sam looks at him with incredulity because Dean’s always the one to play along and joke—except not today. Except not two nights ago on a cold winter day when Dean slammed the bedroom door in Sam’s face and then asked Cas to marry him just hours later.

Maybe something inside him is wearing thin.

“Let Cas have a little fun, Dean,” Sam says and he’s grinning at Cas, at Cas who’s looking more desperate for food by the second and doesn’t seem to be aware of Dean’s mood. “Just because you guys share a bed doesn’t mean that Cas is off-limits.” Sam grabs his phone then, looks at it with more interest than warranted for a screen that’s not even turned on. “Or”—the corner of Sam’s mouth quirks up and he’s going to say something that’s probably going to embarrass Dean—“you could get him a ring.”

Sam hits too close to home.

There’s a moment where Dean grasps for words, and there’s a moment where Cas stands up, abruptly, seems to sway on his feet, and then Cas is making his way out of the booth and out the door.

“Hey,” Dean says. “Hey!”

Sam looks concerned, concerned like a brother, a friend, while Dean stands up, clutches the edge of the pub table with his trembling hands, with his fingers that are bare—no ring—no ring—no ring—(there should’ve been noise, Dean thinks)—and then Dean’s off, and then Dean’s following Cas out the door while Sam watches him leave.

When Dean catches up to Cas, Cas looks at him with tears in his eyes and says, “I gave you the wrong answer.”

 

 

 

“I want my own room for the duration of this investigation,” Cas tells Sam. “I want my own bed.”

 

 

 

“Dean, don’t go.”

That’s what Sam says when Cas is gone, when Cas has locked himself up in a new motel room for the case because he can’t stand to be around Dean anymore.

They’re in a different room, too, one with two beds and Dean’s already sick of it, already sick of Sam and the feeling of the old, because they’re on a case and it’s like nothing’s changed and Dean _needs_ things to change.

When Dean makes his way for the door, Sam gets up from his bed and crosses the room and grabs Dean’s arm, jerks him away.

“Dean, he doesn’t want to see anyone.”

“He’s hungry,” Dean says.

“It’s not—Dean, it’s not your job to feed Cas. He’s a grown—”

“It _is_ my job,” Dean says and he’s angry, so angry, and he’s pushing Sam away, pulling his own arm out of his brother’s grip, and he’s breathing. He’s breathing so hard.

“It is my job,” Dean says and he presses a hand to his mouth and goddamn it, there are tears, there are already tears making their way down his cheeks, and then he’s frustrated, and then he’s kicking the door, just a few swift kicks that make his foot hurt and he thinks that he’s strained a muscle just because it’s been too long since he’d had to do that.

“It is my job, Sammy,” Dean says and then he’s got both hands on the door, and he’s hammering on it, and it’s a useless move but the pain on his knuckles makes his own pain feel more profound and it makes it feel real—it’s been submerged for too long. “It is my job because I’m his husband and I fucking married him yesterday and it is my job. It is my job.”

“What?” Sam says and he’s shocked because of course he didn’t know. Because when they did it, they did it in the morning, and it was quiet, it was too fucking quiet, just the scratch of a pen on a flimsy piece of paper, and it should have been noisy, should have been in the presence of laughing friends and family because Dean never thought that he’d get to be married but now he _is_.

There should’ve been sound.

Dean gives up and he breaks and he’s sliding down to the ground, is sitting on the dirty motel room floor with his back against the door and he looks at Sam. He just looks.

“Thought that it’d be better now,” Dean says. “Thought that things would change.”

And he’s lying there gasping and Sam’s still just staring.

“We don’t even have rings,” Dean says, “but I thought that he’d talk to me now.”

 

 

 

They leave without solving the case.

 

 

 

Sam drives. Dean sits in the passenger seat.

Cas hides in the back.

 

 

 

Gas station. Sam fills the Impala’s engine. He goes inside to pay.

He leaves Dean and Cas alone.

 

 

 

Bunker.

Dean’s bed becomes the kitchen chair again.

“There are other rooms,” Sam says.

“Leave me alone.”

“How are you going to sleep?”

He can’t sleep.

 

 

 

Dean thinks that in the kitchen, he’ll live for weeks, and maybe that’s the way that he wants it, but then just after one night, it’s 5:00 a.m. and his husband is standing barefoot on the cold tiles.

When Cas presses his hand to Dean’s cheek, Dean just about breaks down.

“Come to bed, Dean,” Cas says and his touch is tender. Soft. “Please.”

Dean’s will is weakest when it comes to Cas.

 

 

 

When morning rises, they don’t.

They stay in bed. Opposite ends. Careful not to touch.

The door of their bedroom swings open and startles them. It’s Sam, panicking, because he thinks that Dean’s run off because Dean isn’t in the kitchen. Only after he relays his blinding concern does he see his brother.

“Oh,” Sam says and he steps out. “I’ll…”

He’s gone.

 

 

 

A week later, and it’s night, and they’re both in their room, and the lamp’s burning bright even though it’s time to sleep.

“I’m leaving,” Cas says.

Dean’s heart seems to suddenly thunder in his ears and he grabs Cas’ wrist, is already thinking that Cas is going to vanish into thin air.

“No,” Dean says. “Damn it, you’re not!”

But Cas sits there hugging his knees to his chest and he looks so small and so fragile (Dean needs to protect him).

“I can’t stay here with you,” Cas says and his face is scrunched up and he looks so upset. “I’m ruining your life. I’m keeping you from finding someone better. A—a woman. You—you should not have to settle for me.”

Dean says no. Dean says he’s not leaving.

Cas buries his face in his knees and hides.

“I shouldn’t have married you,” Cas says, “but I was so selfish.”

You deserve better.

 

 

 

When Cas disappears two months later, Dean weeps like a broken man.

But he’s already been broken for so long.

 

 

 

Two years later, “I found him,” Sam says tiredly.

 

 

 

“What are you hiding?” Dean asks.

Sam shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

“I saw him,” Sam says, “by coincidence in a store.”

Dean’s mouth feels dry. This feels like a long time ago has come again.

“Was he working there?”

“No.”

“What are you hiding from me?” Dean says and maybe because Dean looks so defeated, Sam gives in and tells him.

“He was with a man.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know, Dean.”

Sam hesitates.

“They live together.”

 

 

 

He can’t sleep.

 

 

 

“Why did you come after me?” Cas says and he’s pacing the room and he looks so distressed, as if what _Dean_ ’s done is the biggest crime. “Why didn’t you leave me alone?”

Dean sits in a kitchen chair. They’re in some apartment in Rexford. There are pictures on the wall with Cas and another man and Cas is smiling.

(Why won’t he smile for Dean?)

“I miss you,” Dean says.

 

 

 

A gasp. A groan. A fluttering sound as clothes hit the floor.

A kiss. Another. Another. Another.

Fingers trailing through hair. Thrusting.

Ecstasy.

And then Dean falls away from the woman in his arms, the woman from the bar and he’s dirty. He’s tainted.

Cas won’t come home.

 

 

 

He can’t sleep.

 

 

 

It’s like a siren, the knocking, when it comes pounding on the bunker door at midnight. When Dean opens the door, it’s been a year or a couple of months or a few days or Dean doesn’t even know.

“Who is it?” Sam says just as Cas says, “I missed you,” and then Dean’s lips are trembling and he’s swallowing and he’s squeezing his eyes shut.

“My husband,” Dean says, voice raspy. “He’s come home.”

Dean almost wishes that he had just stayed away.

 

 

 

They’re in the kitchen fifteen minutes later, sitting at the table, and they’re drinking coffee except they’re not because neither of them have touched their mugs.

“I want to sleep with you,” Cas says, “in our bedroom,” but Dean clenches his jaw and stares at the coffee mug for a long time.

“That’s not a good idea,” Dean says.

“I want to sleep with you,” Cas says. “I don’t want to be alone.”

“That’s not a good idea,” Dean says.

 

 

 

They’re in bed and Dean’s got his back turned to Cas and Cas is quiet and Dean is, too.

He can’t sleep.

 

 

 

It’s the next morning and Sam’s a buffer at the table for them.

“Glad to have you back,” Sam says and Cas says, “Thank you.”

 

 

 

It’s later. It’s dinner. They’re at the table again and Sam is still a buffer.

“I found a really interesting case,” Sam says. “Eight hours away. I thought the three of us could go and investigate. It’s been a while.”

It’s been a long while.

 

 

 

“I want us to share a motel room without Sam,” Cas says to him and Sam stands by the wayside awkwardly while he looks at Dean.

“That’s a waste of money,” Dean says.

 

 

 

It’s night and they’re in the motel room and Dean’s got his back to Cas again. Sam’s in the other bed right next to them, but it must not matter to Cas because Cas slides up, presses right up against Dean and wraps his arm around Dean’s waist.

There are lips at the back of Dean’s neck and Cas’ hand is searching until he’s got a hold of Dean’s fingers.

Dean grits his teeth and pulls his hand out of Cas’ and then shoves Cas away.

“For god’s sake, it’s been two years,” Dean says and after that, the room is quiet.

 

 

 

“I was awake,” Sam tells him the next morning. “I, um, heard you and Cas fighting—”

“Why are you telling me this, Sammy?” Dean says and Dean stuffs a doughnut into his mouth and chews obnoxiously, hopes that it’ll make Sam just stop talking.

“I don’t know, man,” Sam says and Sam looks off into the distance, looks off to where Cas is in Dean’s only other extra fed suit and is interviewing a suspect.

“That thing just ate her,” an old man’s telling Cas hysterically. “She nurtured it and loved it but it didn’t understand how to love her back. It just ate her.”

“Does it bother you?” Sam says and they’re still watching Cas, both of them, and the agitated man is showing his true colours, is touching Cas in ways that should make Dean’s mouth go dry, and this man wants Cas so bad that it shows.

It’s always Cas that gets the attention, Dean thinks, just as the man asks Cas, “Agent, will you be my saviour?”

Dean snorts and Cas turns to look at him.

Cas is watching him with unwavering eye contact and Dean looks at him, stares back before turning his back to the whole scene.

“That old guy just groped Cas,” Sam says with disbelief a moment later and Dean bites his tongue and doesn’t say anything.

 

 

 

The hysterical man ends up in their motel room the next day because he’s a victim being hunted by some weird ass bird monster that none of them have ever heard of and don’t know how to kill.

“You should get some sleep,” Sam says to him when it gets dark and the man shakes his vehemently before he decides that he is sleepy after all.

“Agent, will you sleep with me?” the old man asks Cas and he points to Dean and Cas’ shared bed, pretends that it’s an innocent question, but his words are dripping with a double meaning. “I’m afraid to be myself. I don’t want to get eaten. You—you could protect me, agent, and get some rest yourself.”

“I’m not a real agent,” Cas informs him and Cas stares at Dean again, something heated, something filled with tension. “I wouldn’t know how to do the real job.”

Dean turns his back to Cas again.

But he says, “You could learn.”

 

 

 

The man’s overbearing and he puts his burden all on Cas.

“I wish that you would understand why I can’t sleep in the bed alone, agent,” he sighs dramatically and he keeps pestering, keeps pushing, and he doesn’t seem to understand that the bird monster is coming in mere hours and they still don’t have anything to kill it with.

Cas is bending under the pressure, suffering from the knowledge that they might not be able to save the man, but the man keeps on whining, and he blames Cas for making innocent mistakes, blames him for taking too long to find a solution to their predicament.

“Agent, really, this is ridiculous,” the old man says. “Don’t think that I haven’t noticed you ignoring me. You told me that you’d save me but you won’t even sleep in this bed when I need comfort. Now—”

Cas snaps.

“I’m doing this for you, you pathetic man,” Cas says as he continues to glare at his laptop screen because they don’t have time to take breaks from researching. “Why is it so hard for you to be patient?”

It’s at that moment that the bird monster comes crashing through the door and it’s screeching at the top of its lungs, littering feathers everywhere, and really, this is the creature that’s going to give Dean nightmares for years to come, that’s going to be the proof that their lives are so bizarre, because the bird is a giant ostrich with a terrifyingly elongated and pointy beak.

The bird screeches and runs straight for the old man, beak aimed to disembowel, and Dean watches the moment as if slowed, because Cas is standing right in the line of fire, is about a second away from having his guts spill out onto the motel room floor, and Dean won’t be able to reach him in time.

The tip of the beak pierces Cas’ navel and red blossoms across his white shirt.

But then Sam starts screaming at the top of his lungs.

It’s a distraction, one that hurts Dean’s ears but it works because the bird ostrich monster turns its head, watches Sam keenly. Dean yanks Cas by the scruff of his neck, pulls him into the first hiding space that he can find, and both of them topple into the small closet of the motel room.

The old man runs into the closet right after them.

Dean shuts the door and they hold their breaths, the three of them cramped and squished right up against each other.

When the bird monster turns its head again and sees that all three of them have disappeared, it makes an angry snapping sound and starts to prowl the room, legs moving menacingly.

Sam runs then, right out the door, and Dean feels relief because they’ve all got away—maybe.

The bird monster lingers, continues to circle the room but looks indecisive, doesn’t go after Sam but isn’t able to find the three men hidden in the closet either—its sense of smell must be deficient.

When the mutant ostrich realizes that its victims are gone, it shrieks miserably and starts lashing out at the contents of the room, starts kicking everything in sight, and it’s a goddamn powerful kicker because the monster manages to upturn a bed, manages to toss it right in front of the closet, and then after throwing a thorough fit, it runs away, down the hallway where Dean can hear the other guests shouting in their horror.

But now the three of them are trapped.

The first thing Dean does is feel up Cas’ body, presses his hand to Cas’ navel and Cas stills, just allows Dean to command his form as Dean examines the bird’s beak wound.

Dean feels his hand grow wet with blood.

“Just a scrape,” Cas says.

“I still want to see it,” Dean says and he doesn’t withdraw his hand from Cas’ skin.

“You can’t see in the dark, Dean.”

After that, they try to get out of the closet.

Dean kicks the closet door, and when that doesn’t work, they push, all of them except that the old man throws a hissy fit as he’s made to work, and it’s to no avail because the bed blocking the closet door is just too heavy and they can’t get it to budge.

“Cas, phone?” Dean says and Cas says, “You?” so Dean shakes his head—they can’t even call Sam for help—and then says no because it’s dark and Cas can’t see him move his head.

“I have my mobile,” the old man says, voice just a high-pitched squeak, and then the old man composes himself and his voice is low, lower, sickeningly innocent. “I can’t reach it though. My arms are pinned behind me. There’s no room to move, agent. It hurts so much!”

Dean’s starting to hate this guy’s guts. His voice is annoying, so goddamn annoying, but even Dean knows that for once, this man does have cause for complaint because the closet’s so small and with three of them in here, they can barely breathe, let alone move.

Dean’s thrown off a little, when Cas pushes into Dean, and then Dean’s got his face squished right up against the closet wall and Cas is pressing firm from behind. Cas’ lips graze Dean’s ear, so hot in the confined space, and then Cas places his hands on either side of Dean’s hips, keeps pressing closer and closer.

“Can you free your arms now?” Cas says and his voice rumbles at the back of Dean’s neck, vibrations sending a shiver down Dean’s spine, and Dean just tries to keep breathing.

The old man’s behind Cas, and he’s fidgeting, but there’s something off about the way that he’s struggling, a little too conveniently half-hearted, and Dean just knows it, already sees it coming when the man says, “I can’t get unstuck, agent! You’re going to have to help me!”

Even in a crisis, this man is a lecherous freak.

“Where is your phone?” Cas asks and then Cas is moving, away from Dean, struggling to turn around and Dean moves, too, turns so that his back is against the closet wall and Cas’ back is flush against Dean’s chest.

“I store it in my undies,” the man says so Dean says, “ _What the fuck_ , _what the fu_ —”

“I like the vibrations,” the lewd man says and Dean doesn’t know why because he’s been angry, been mad at Cas, but there’s a sudden protectiveness that he feels, one that he’s felt for years but died with him these last few days, and without thinking, Dean’s wrapping his arms around Cas, maybe trying to keep the pervert away.

Cas huffs, loud and frustrated and clearly, he’s had enough of this guy’s antics, but he’s already moving towards the old man, reaching to the inevitable place where he’ll have to go to get the phone that Dean doesn’t even want to touch—except Dean’s got his arms in a tight grip around the ex-angel and Cas finds himself ensnared.

“Dean, let go,” Cas says then, quietly, and Cas leans his head back, rests it against Dean’s chest, and a small sound leaves Dean’s mouth then, maybe a cry, and Dean’s eyes feel a little wet, cheeks feel a little wet, and he doesn’t understand this unexpected wave of emotion. He doesn’t understand it.

Dean lets Cas go.

“Did you find the phone?” Dean asks Cas, and his voice is rough, as if he’s sick but he’s not. After a moment where Cas has his hands stuck down the man’s pants and the man’s not doing anything to stifle his pleasured, over exaggerated grunts, Cas recoils and says, “There was something hard but it was not his phone.”

“Oh lord, I forgot that it’s in the car!” the man squeals, as if that’s going to cover up his transparent behaviour, and then Dean’s snarling, swearing, hissing words and barking threats without even thinking them through.

Dean pulls Cas in, just grabs him and there’s a bit of difficult manoeuvring, but then it’s Cas this time who’s forced up against the wall, and it’s Dean whose nose is buried at the base of Cas’ neck, who’s pressing fervent kisses there and Cas is gasping and Dean doesn’t know what’s come over him—he just doesn’t.

“Agent?” the man says because he can hear but he can’t see in the blackness of the closet. He must not have realized that Dean’s put himself between Cas and the pervert because Dean feels a hand snake up his leg, trail up his thigh as the man says, “Agent, I hear strange noises—”

Dean knows that he shouldn’t but he turns around and gives the pervert a bloody nose.

“I didn’t realize that you two were canoodling!” the man exclaims, unwittingly giving himself away, and Dean leans in and kisses Cas’ neck fiercely.

“You’ve been groping my husband,” Dean growls and Cas’ breath hitches in his throat, and the man sounds faint with this reveal of information as he says, “Oh, lord. He was married!”

Maybe the letch has some shame after all.

 

 

 

Sam rescues them from the closet two and a half hours later.

When the light streams through, Dean comes to his senses.

He doesn’t look at Cas until they reach the diner.

 

 

 

The bird monster is an ancient creature with some frightening mating rituals, they learn.

“You said that the bird ate her and she was its caretaker?” Sam says and he furrows a brow, looks at the old man skeptically. “I did the research and these birds—they show love by swallowing the objects of their affections and then regurgitating them.”

The old man’s mouth opens and a French fry falls out.

“It was trying to show her love?” the man says and he’s understandably taken aback.

Sam nods and angles his laptop on the diner table in a way that they can see the screen. “Usually, mating rituals only occur between other, um, bird monsters and since the bird monsters are immune to death by being consumed, when they’re regurgitated, they aren’t actually harmed.”

“It was an interspecies romance,” Cas says and he’s sitting in the booth, across from Dean, beside Sam where Dean can keep an eye on the pervert that’s sitting at Dean’s own side. “The bird tried to show its affection via consumption but killed her instead. They showed love in their different ways but could not interpret each other’s languages."  

It’s the most that Cas has said in one go since starting this case, since coming back to Dean, since even before Lucifer’s possession from so many years ago, and Cas is looking down at his burger. It’s untouched.

Cas has changed, Dean thinks, since coming back.

After two years with another man.

He changed with that man. He didn’t change with Dean.

He shouldn’t have come back.

 

 

 

Dean’s in the diner’s bathroom and he’s washing his hands when Cas comes in and Cas presses up against him, presses him into the sink.

When Cas’ mouth hovers over the shell of Dean’s ear, Dean turns his head away and says, “I don’t know why I kissed you in that closet but I didn’t mean to.”

Cas moves away.

“Let’s just leave it in that closet,” Dean says.

 

 

 

They don’t want to book another motel room because if the bird finds them, the room will get trashed again, so the four of them just sleep in the car.

The old man’s in the backseat and that’s usually where Cas sleeps but this time, Dean sends Sam there instead.

“Why do you care?” Cas says.

 

 

 

Dean stays awake for look-out.

He can’t sleep.

 

 

 

Somehow, Dean _does_ fall asleep, even though they’re parked on the side of the road by a flat valley and the moon’s low and giant in the horizon, should have kept Dean awake by its light.

When Dean wakes up, the old man and Sam are comatose but the passenger seat on Dean’s side is empty.

Cas has left him again.

 

 

 

Dean finds him further down the road, sitting on some tree stump. Maybe the valley was never flat to begin with.

Cas is gazing up at the moon.

The light makes his skin unnaturally pale. Drained.

“You look like a hitchhiker,” Dean says and then Dean grabs him by the arm, hauls him up. “C’mon. Back to the car.”

Cas pulls his arm away.

“I’m not sleepy, Dean.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Dean says.

Cas bursts into tears.

 

 

 

“Where’s Cas?”

“Sent him on a bus home.”

Sam scrutinizes him. There’s concern crinkling the corners of his eyes.

“Why?” Sam says.

“He was injured.”

“We looked at that, Dean. It was nothing.”

“Well, didn’t want him to get caught up in all this bird nonsense,” Dean says, waving a hand around, and Sam’s eyes harden.

“You can’t be overprotective like that, Dean. You know he hates that.” Sam’s gritting his teeth together, running his fingers through his hair in his frustration. “You two had a fight, didn’t you?”

“I made him cry,” Dean says.

“What did you say?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

But Sam’s face says that it does.

Sam rubs at his temple.

“You two need some sort of…couples counselling.”

“Stop making it sound like we’re fucking married.”

“You _are_.”

Dean clenches his hand into a fist.

“Then where was he,” Dean says, “when I needed him?”

 

 

 

“You’re such a piece of shit,” Dean says and the old man opens his mouth and tries to protest but he really is a piece of shit so he doesn’t have much to say.

They find out that the man was the co-owner of the bird monster, and while the woman who had shared the custody had been kind to the mutant ostrich, the old man had not been. The old man had found it hilarious to torment the creature, to ruffle its feathers and taunt it, and now the ostrich had come back for its revenge.

“The woman, she knew what I did to the ostrich,” the man had protested. “She took the ostrich away from me and told me that I gave the bird PTSD. PTSD! As if a bird can have that!

“But look, agents, it wasn’t all just me, alright? The woman tried to be all caring for the bird but she got impatient, too. The bird ran away once because of his PTSD, I guess, and she got so mad that she stopped caring about it. She was so self-absorbed, agents! She started ignoring the bird and _I_ had to start feeding it, you know. Me! So I’m a good guy, alright? Just made some mistakes.

“To be honest, agents,” the man had whispered, and he had glanced around as if he had expected to be jumped. “I don’t know why the bird never gave up on her. That’s why I was so shocked to hear from your research that the bird eating her was a proclamation of love.”

“We oughta just let the bird take you,” Dean says.

 

 

 

They kill the bird monster.

It’s not justice, Dean thinks, but the old man is injured in the process and dies a slow death that they can’t even kill the pain of.

“At least the bird monster gets to be with the lady caretaker in death?” Sam says, as if that will be any better.

They know the ways of the after world too well.

“They didn’t belong with each other, anyway,” Dean says, and they drive back home.

 

 

 

When Dean enters their bedroom, Cas is curled up on his side, back facing away from the door, still wearing Dean’s old fed suit from the night before—probably still wearing the shirt that they tried to get the blood out of but couldn’t.

Dean shuts the door behind him, strips out of his own day old clothes, changes into his pajamas.

A full day of hunting and an eight hour drive home has made it 3:29 a.m. and he’s exhausted.

He climbs into bed.

He sits at Cas’ side and looks down at him.

Cas isn’t asleep.

Three years ago, Dean would have eased the tie off of Cas’ neck. Dean would have with gentle touches taken the heavy coat jacket off and would have hung it up in the closet. Three years ago, Dean would have run his hand up along Cas’ side, would have trailed up and rubbed small circles into Cas’ scalp, would have run his fingers through Cas’ hair and then would have lain down himself, fitting the curves of their bodies together easily before blinking off to sleep.

Now Dean does nothing.

Now Dean only looks at him while Cas keeps his eyes resolutely shut.

Dean turns off the lamp.

 

 

 

He’s still there when Dean wakes up.

It’s 11:00 a.m.

Dean sits up in bed and doesn’t move.

 

 

 

At 1:32 p.m., Cas opens his eyes, eyes that seem reddened and tired and because it feels like he should, and because it feels like it’s required, Dean leans in and presses a kiss to Cas’ temple.

Cas’ skin is hot.

Dean places the back of his hand to Cas’ cheek then, to his forehead, and there’s sweat there and that’s when Dean sees how delirious Cas looks.

“Dean, please,” Cas says.

Thirteen hours later, Cas is in the hospital.

 

 

 

After two days, they start saying things like _if his fever doesn’t go down soon…too high…potential organ failure..._

“But he was fine,” Dean says, “just two days ago. What’s wrong with him?”

They don’t know.

 

 

 

“Don’t leave me.”

Dean’s begging and he’s got Cas’ hand in his own, has it pressed to his cheek as if Cas is the one giving him a tender touch and it’s not just Dean holding Cas’ limp arm.

Sam opens the door to the room then.

“Is he—” Sam says but the heart monitor is still showing signs of life.

“They don’t think he’s going to last the night, Sammy,” Dean says and he’s goddamn terrified.

 

 

 

His body is cold before the sun even sets.

His heart is still beating.  

 

 

 

Sam runs in and his hair is a nest and he’s holding a vial in his hand, is rambling semi-coherently as he dumps the contents of the vial down Cas' throat.

“…bird beak’s poison…wound doesn’t fester…practically undetectable—”

After that, Sam collapses onto the floor of the hospital room, gasping for breath.

“Knew the problem…had to be supernatural in nature,” Sam wheezes, “and then…I remembered…the monster’s beak hit him.

“But…” Sam pauses, doesn’t meet Dean’s eyes. “But…it might be too late, Dean. Doctors said organ damage…”

Cas’ hand is cold in Dean’s own.

 

 

 

A month later, Dean carries Cas in his arms down the bunker’s hallway and lays him onto their bed.

“I’m tired,” Cas says and his eyes are drooping.

“I know,” Dean says.

 

 

 

“Uh, happy—happy anniversary,” Dean says and hands Cas a plate of sliced orange.

Cas sits up in bed. He’s still tired. He’s still got a stack of medication to take and an even longer list of scheduled hospital appearances. He still can’t walk.

“How long has it been?”

Dean looks down at his hand. They still don’t have rings.

“Three years,” Dean says and thinks, _but more than two of them you spent with someone else_.

Cas pushes the plate of orange to the side and curls up back in bed.

“I don’t want it. You have it.”

“I’m not hungry,” Dean says.

“Then throw it away.”

What a waste.

 

 

 

“You haven’t been sleeping with Cas,” Sam says when they’re eating lunch and Cas is asleep. “You’ve been holed up in the spare.”

“He needs space, Sammy.”

“You know he’s weak. He only came out of that hospital a week ago. What if he needs help getting to the bathroom?”

Dean downs a beer.

“He hollers then,” Dean says, “if he needs me.”

Sam spins his fork in the spaghetti. The pasta winds up only to slide off the end of the fork. Sam does it again. It falls again.

“You know,” Sam says. “He calls me on my phone when he needs help. The only time he calls for you is when I’m not here.”

Dean clenches his jaw. “Why’re you telling me this?”

Sam sets his fork down with a dull thud on the table.

“I don’t even know, man,” he says. “I don’t even know.”

 

 

 

Cas’ skin glistens.

Dean’s crouched barefoot in the bathtub, jeans rolled up above his ankles. He works, quick, experienced from weeks of sponge baths at the hospital. This is the only thing that Cas won’t ask Sam to do. This is the only sole responsibility that Dean has.

Dean lathers up his hands with shampoo, works it into Cas’ hair. Cas usually closes his eyes but today, he keeps them open.

Dean doesn’t meet them.

“I wish I could stand,” Cas says.

“Yeah,” Dean says.

Cas holds up his hand, flexes it, stares and then drops it.

“This weakness is unsettling. I can’t—I can’t even hold a pitcher of water, Dean.”

Dean makes a small sound in his throat, a non-committal hum.

He’s done soaping up Cas’ hair. He grabs the sponge at his side and starts to scrub at Cas’ skin, up along his arms, his neck, down his chest. When he runs it up his legs, to his thighs, dips it between Cas’ legs, Cas shudders and then there’s a hand cupping Dean’s cheek, cold and dripping water and soap, and Dean falters, looks at him for the first time.

“Will you sleep with me?” Cas says. “Tonight?”

Dean swallows.

Cas’ hand is shaky against his cheek. He’s having difficulty just holding it up.

Dean takes Cas’ hand, keeps it in place and Cas’ lips tremble.

“I’ll be there,” Dean says but he feels like he shouldn’t be.

 

 

 

The bar’s rowdy tonight, glasses clinking together every couple of minutes, shots being poured down throats as a group of twenty- or thirty-somethings celebrate an engagement—today on the brink of bliss, Dean thinks. Tomorrow—nothing.

Or maybe that’s just Dean.

Dean sits by himself, jerks his thumb at the party-goers and orders, “Whatever they’re having.”

The bartender sets down his drink.

He’s on his fourth shot alone when a woman—too young for him—swings onto the stool and engages him in conversation, wants to know why he looks so lonely, and she’s got a couple of girlfriends in another corner of the bar—Dean knows—and they’re pointing and giggling at him and when the woman suggests that they go to his place, Dean knows that it’s some sort of dare and he’s not drunk enough for it.

“Why not?” she says and she’s staring down at his fingers, his bare, bare fingers, and she says, “You married?”

Four more shots and Dean’s drunk enough.

He leads her to his car, pretends not to notice when she snaps a picture of his fake license plate and sends it to all of her friends, and they drive and maybe Dean’s had too much experience over the years driving drunk because the car never swerves.

Sam would kill him if he knew.

When they reach the bunker, Dean says, “Here.”

“What the hell?”

She’s peering at the bunker’s little door, probably realizing that there isn’t a house for miles, and Dean sees her reaching for her purse, hand slowly making its way to the car lock, and she’s going to book it real soon.

“My house’s really awesome,” Dean says. “’S a bat cave.”

Dean lumbers out of the car, fumbles for his keys and opens the door, pushes it wide open and says, “See?”

She takes a good, long look and maybe she’s thinking it’s more of a murder station because she doesn’t exit the Impala.

“Can you just drive me back?” she says.

She says that she has asthma and that she’s left her inhaler at the bar.

Dean drives her back.

 

 

 

“You look trashed,” Sam says.

Dean stumbles down the steps.

“’M sleepin’ now,” Dean says.

“In the spare, right?”

Sam’s standing up, a Skype video call with his girlfriend, Eileen, abandoned.

Dean rubs at his eyes and nods vaguely to Sam’s question.

“Don’t let Cas see you,” Sam says.

 

 

 

Dean doesn’t knock. He just ambles in, locks the door behind him and starts to strip out of his suffocating jacket, out of his scratchy jeans, and Cas is lying in bed, dark shadows under his eyes (they’ve been there since he got sick). When he hears the noise of Dean’s arrival, he turns his head towards the door and struggles to sit up.

“You came,” he says and his voice cracks and he sounds as if he worried about it all day, as if he didn’t think that Dean’s _I’ll be there_ in the bathtub this morning meant anything more than a throwaway reassurance (he would be right).

“’Course,” Dean says and grins but Cas doesn’t see his easy smile because Cas is looking down at his hands, is tangling them together in his lap and his breathing is becoming laboured and he looks so anxious, so goddamn anxious.

“I—I wanted us to talk,” Cas says and his voice cracks again. “About—about everything since L-Lucifer.”

Dean finishes stripping down and says, “I wanna kiss you tonight,” and he starts to move towards the bed.

There’s a sharp intake of breath from Cas then and he’s still gazing down at his lap, at his hands, and he doesn’t see Dean coming.

“Dean, please,” he says and Dean says, “I’m okay with you begging,” and he slips into bed, pulls Cas’ frail form into his arms and kisses Cas’ temple, lingers his mouth over Cas’ cheek and Cas stiffens and Cas says, “You smell like drink.”

“That’s because I’ve been drinking,” Dean says.

 

 

 

“Go—please go. Please.”

 

 

 

He can’t sleep.

 

 

 

“It’s a problem, Dean!” Sam shouts and Sam’s voice echoes like thunder in the bunker, in the kitchen.

There’s a clattering of sound—dissonant, grating—piercing Dean’s hangover headache as Sam bangs open and closes cupboards for ingredients for his breakfast sandwich. At five-thirty in the morning, it’s too loud and too early for the boom of Sam’s anger to sink through the bunker’s thin walls.

“Keep it down!” Dean hisses. “Cas is asleep.”

“Oh, I’m sure he is,” Sam sneers. “Just like he was last night.”

It’s a slap to Dean’s face.

“I—I left,” Dean says and he swallows hard, feels like he’s fucking choking. “I left right when he told me to.”

“He cried,” Sam says. “I heard it through the walls, Dean, and I went to him and I didn’t know he was capable of getting like he was.

“After all these years,” Sam says, “he’s a brother to me, Dean, and you’re supposed to be my brother, too, except—except I don’t know what you are anymore.

“What the hell are you doing to yourself?”

 

 

 

“C’mon,” Dean says, a week later, and he lifts up Cas from the bed, up into his arms, and says, “Bath time.”

Cas pushes at his chest, and it’s nothing, that touch, too weak, lacking force, but Dean sets him down.

“Walk me there,” Cas says.

“I carried you before.”

“Walk me there,” Cas says, “and then call Sam.”

“You can barely stand,” Dean says.

Cas strips him of his last responsibility.

 

 

 

The next day, Sam slams his fist down onto the table.

“What are these?” Dean says.

“Divorce papers.”

Dean throws them into the trash.

 

 

                                 

“You don’t want to get divorced, you don’t want to be married—what the hell do you want, Dean?”

Sam’s voice thunders again today.

“What have you even done?” Sam says. “What have you even done since you married him that makes you an even remotely fit husband? What new responsibilities have you carried out, Dean, since then? Why did you even marry—”

“He wasn’t talking to me,” Dean says and his mind feels numb, his throat dry.

“He wasn’t talking to anyone,” Sam says.

“I—I needed him. He—me.”

“He needs you now,” Sam says, “and he needed you then—but you were never there. You’re never there.”

“He never stays, Sam,” Dean says and he’s desperate and he’s hurting and it’s like it happened yesterday. It’s like Cas’ yes to Lucifer just happened not more than a day ago. “Cas always leaves. He always leaves.”

“He’s always there,” Sam says. “Always when you needed him.”

“He left me for more than two years.”

“Which two years are you even talking about?” Sam spits.

A stifling silence hangs over them.

“You can’t let it go, can you?” Sam says and he looks at Dean as if Dean is the pettiest thing that he’s ever seen in his life. “You’re still thinking about those two years when Lucifer possessed him.”

“Lucifer killed him,” Dean says, “but Cas is still living.”

 

 

 

“When is Sam returning?”

Dean looks up from the orange that he’s slicing. Cas is sitting up in the chair at their little kitchen table. It’s the first time that he’s been able to walk so far.

His eyes are still marred with dark circles.

It’s been a month.

“I don’t know,” Dean says and then, “Eat your orange,” and he brushes his thumb across Cas’ cheek.

Cas closes his eyes when Dean kisses him on the jaw.

 

 

“…can’t sleep.”

He’s on the phone when Dean comes in.

“Sam, please, I can’t bear being this burden anymo—”

When Cas sees him, he stops talking. Just for a moment. Just long enough for Dean to press a kiss to his temple. From the mouthpiece, Dean hears Sam’s voice on the other line, faint but demanding.

(“Is he there?”)

“Yes,” Cas says.

(“Tell him I’m getting married.”)

“Sam—”

(“Tell him he’s not invited.”)

 

 

 

In the middle of the night, Dean’s jostled awake.

Cas is sitting up, panting, drenched in sweat, and he’s moving, heaving himself out of bed, taking a few laboured steps towards the door, and he should be strong enough now, Dean knows, except he’s going to fall tonight.

Dean darts out of bed and catches him just as he as does.

“What’s wrong?” Dean says as he drags Cas back to the mattress. Cas’ hand is moving, clawing towards the direction of the doorknob, and he wants to get out but he must realize what motion he’s making because he stops flailing and doesn’t resist Dean.

“Bad dream,” Cas says when they’re back in bed and Cas is sitting propped up against the headboard. Dean goes and grabs a spare towel and starts to mop up his hair and skin.

Dean doesn’t know why he says it—“About Lucifer?”

Cas freezes up, body seizing for just a split second before he composes himself.

“No,” Cas says and he curls up back into bed, on his side, looks so vulnerable. “About you.”

 

 

 

He can’t sleep.

He tries his goddamn hardest. He lies in bed for a long time and Cas passes out again soon enough.

But Dean—

He can’t sleep.

Dean sits up then, turns on the lamp and watches over Cas. Cas’ body is still but his hands are clenched tight into fists and his face looks miserable even in sleep.

Maybe he’s still dreaming about Dean.

Dean runs a finger along Cas’ jaw, then moves to lie back down. He moves up next to him, aligns their bodies like he hasn’t for a long time, and he tosses an arm around Cas’ waist, presses his mouth to the back of Cas’ neck.

He’s become Cas’ nightmare.

Dean pulls away then, can’t breathe all of a sudden, and he tears out of bed, and he’s going for the same door, just like Cas, needs to escape, and because he’s not as tired as Cas and not as sick, he manages to open the door, manages to stumble down the hallway, past Sam’s unoccupied room, past more and more empty rooms and stone cold corners, and he’s going somewhere—he just doesn’t know where.

When he stops, he’s in the bunker dungeon.

When he stops, he’s standing in the devil’s trap and the chair that they keep there is looming before him, mocking him from just a few feet away.

He was cured here.

But somehow he’s still a demon.  

 

 

 

He doesn’t want to be Cas’ nightmare.

 

 

 

“Where are we going?” Cas asks.

They’re in the Impala a week later. It’s raining hard and it’s not the kind of day that Dean envisioned but it can’t be helped.

“You need some fresh air, Cas.”

Cas leans his head against the passenger side window.

“Dean—”

“It’s a surprise,” Dean says and leans over, cups Cas’ cheek for a moment, runs his hand soothingly down Cas’ arm.

“Is there another appointment at the hospital that I don’t know about?”

Dean licks his lips.

“Baby, it’s a helluva better surprise than that.”

 

 

 

“I don’t understand.”

They’re in a restaurant. A fancy kind. Dean doesn’t even remember the name because after googling and finding something suitable, he had dialled the number immediately and made a reservation. His hands had been so sweaty that his phone had slipped mid-conversation just as he had been giving his name.

That’s why they had greeted him today as Mr. Wince.

Cas hadn’t questioned it.

But now he questions the restaurant.

“It’s—it’s a date, Cas,” Dean says and he would lean over and hold Cas’ hand across the table, like in the movies, except his hands are sweaty now, too, and his heart’s fluttering wildly in his chest because he’s trying to do this right for once and he’s going to fix this. He has to.

“Oh,” Cas says and looks off to the side, into the distance where the bathrooms are except his eyes don’t seem to be taking anything in.

“Cas, do you need me to—”

Cas shifts in his chair, keeps looking towards those bathrooms, and he looks exhausted, pale when he shouldn’t be. He’s been too pale for too long.

The waiter comes over and Cas doesn’t want anything.

Dean orders him something, anyway.

They sit in silence for twenty minutes.

Their food comes.

When Cas doesn’t pick up his fork and eat, suddenly Cas’ cheeks seem hollower to Dean, his form even more emaciated.

“Cas, you gotta—”

Dean drags his chair to Cas’ side, perches on its edge and presses a hand to Cas’ cheek, brushes Cas’ hair away from his forehead, and his voice is soft when he says, “Cas, you gotta eat.”

When Dean takes his hand and entwines their fingers, “Are you changing for him?” Cas asks.

“What?”

“Are you changing yourself for Sam?”

Dean struggles to make his lips move.

“Are you…caring for me now,” Cas says and he’s distraught, “because Sam left?”

“I’m—this is for you, Cas,” Dean says and he swallows. “This—” His voice breaks. “I’m—I’m sorry.”

Cas looks down at his lap, takes such a sharp breath then, a breath that sounds like a half-formed sob, as if Cas is desperately trying to keep himself calm.

Dean can’t have him cry here. Not today. Not when he’s trying to make it all better.

“I bought”—Dean digs into his pocket, pulls out the box and puts it in front of Cas—“you a ring. I—we missed out on them the first time ’round.”

Cas stares at the box. He doesn’t open it.

“I don’t have one for you,” he says.

“Doesn’t matter,” Dean says, and Cas looks pained and his lips are trembling and he looks like he wants to hide.

“I know that I don’t matter to you,” Cas says.

Dean doesn’t know how to respond.

“I wish that…you wouldn’t lie to me.” Cas looks down at his lap again. “I know that Sam has estranged himself from you because of me. I know that—I know you are only trying to get Sam back—I understand, Dean. He will always be first.”

It seems wrong to hear the truth from Cas’ lips.

Or what has seemed to be the truth so many times.

Around them, people laugh and chatter.

They drink.

They eat.

Cas weeps.  

Cas runs the back of his hand across his eyes and wipes away tears. Cas’ eyes always seem swollen these days even when Dean doesn’t see him shed a single tear (he must shed them in secret).

Dean’s tried. Dean’s tried to massage away the dark circles under Cas’ eyes so many times but they still stay and now Dean’s chest is tight, and his throat is tight, and there’s an ache radiating from his stomach, spreading to his head.

“I was ashamed to tell you,” Cas says, “so the only way to stop myself from telling you was to stop speaking. I’m—I’m sorry. It’s been so long that I no longer remember how to speak with you anymore.”

Dean clutches his chair, clenches his fingers around the edge of his seat.

“And there were times that I tried to tell you,” Cas says, “but something would always happen and then I couldn’t anymore.”

“What—what didn’t you want to tell me?”

“Why I left you,” Cas says.

Why he said yes to Lucifer.

 

 

                        

Dean loathes himself.

 

 

 

I said yes because it was the only way that I could be useful to you, Cas had said.

You’re not a tool, Dean had said.

I am nothing, Cas had said and he had shook. I was a burden. I’m still a burden. Now more than ever before.

You could do nothing and I’d still need you, Dean had said. I love you.

You don’t love me anymore, Dean—I…I know.

I love you, Dean had said. I wish I’d said it more…but the words don’t come easy to me.

 

 

 

I said yes because if I did not, Lucifer would have sought Sam and I know that you would have hurt. I…did not want to you to hurt, Dean.

You almost killed me, Dean had said, when you said yes.

 

 

 

I said yes because heaven abandoned me. They did not want me. No one did.

I wanted you, Dean had said and his voice had seem to shatter, had seemed to break. I wanted you every second of every day.

Please, Cas had said. Please don’t say that.

Why not?

Because I am not Sam, Cas had said, and Sam is everything to you.

You’re just as much to me, Dean had said, as Sam is.

No, Cas had said and he had begged Dean. Don’t say that. Don’t lie.

It’s not a lie, Dean had said. Why—why is it so hard to believe?

But Dean had known why.

 

 

 

I said yes because—Cas hadn’t been able to get the words out—I said yes when you asked me to marry you because—Cas hadn’t been able to get the words out—because I could not stand to let you go—I could not—Dean—Dean—I needed you more than you needed me—I—I wanted to keep you when I should have—when I should have left you in peace—I was a b-burden—I should have left.

You did leave, Dean had said. You did leave but I came for you.

Why did you come for me? Cas had said and he had wept harder. Why—Why did you come to Rexford to take me back? I made it so easy for you to—for you to be _rid_ of me.

Oh, god, Dean had said. Oh, god. I nee—needed you. I n-needed you.

You would have been fine with Sam, Cas had said. With Sam in my stead, you would have forgotten me soon enough. It—it would not have been the first time.

He’s my brother, Dean had said. You’re—you’re the goddamn love of my life.

No, Cas had said and he had seemed to crumple up on himself, had seemed to become smaller. I am—if you left me, you would see. You would see that I am nothing. Lucifer—

Lucifer told me so many times, Dean.

Why would you believe him? Dean had said.

But Dean had known why.

 

 

 

What did I do wrong? Dean had asked him again and again over the years. Why did you leave me?

I was weak, Cas had said. I came back to you after you left Rexford when I should have stayed there. I—but I couldn’t bear it, Dean. The man that I lived with, roomed with—he had a lover, a woman. I would see them together and…I would…think of _you_.

And Dean had stopped breathing then, had seemed as if he had been swallowed whole, and he had felt so sick, had wanted to retch, retch away the sick feeling, but he had only dry heaved and nothing had come up and he had still felt as if he had been swallowed whole.

I thought— Dean had said. I thought you were with him. With the man.

I couldn’t, Cas had said. I wouldn’t be able to.

Dean had fallen from his chair then, drowning, drowning, had knelt before Cas and had placed his hands on Cas’ knees and he had been choking. He hadn’t been able to breathe.

I slept with a woman, Dean had said, when you wouldn’t come home. I tried to do it again…that night I drank and came to you.

I’m s-sorry, Dean had said and he had laid his head onto Cas’ lap, had held onto Cas’ knees so hard. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I love you. I’m sorry.

 

 

 

Dean loathes himself.

 

 

 

“Oh!” the waiter says when he sees two men weeping, Dean kneeling before Cas, a ring on the table. “Is this a proposal? Congratulations, sir! Sir…? Sir, are you alright? Sir—holy fucking shit!”

 

 

 

The ambulance arrives.

 

 

 

The hospital is cold.

Dean calls out for him.

“Cas? Cas?”

The curtains around Dean’s bed are drawn away. A nurse. He rests a hand on Dean’s shoulder.

“Cas,” Dean rasps. “My husband—Cas, Ca—”

“Your husband was ill,” the nurse says. “For his sake and yours, we sent him home.”

“I need to take care of him,” Dean says. “I hurt him. I need—”

“Your brother’s here,” the nurse says. “Let me go get him.”

 

 

 

“Told you binge-eating burgers was going to come back to bite you one day.”

Sam sighs.

“Heart attack, Dean. Seriously. You’re too young to be having heart attacks.”

Sam pushes his hair out of his face.

“Guess my wife and I are going to have to move back into the bunker to take care of the sick, elderly couple.”

Sam’s exasperated.

“Okay, but seriously, Dean! Heart attack? You had a freaking heart attack.”

“I thought that feeling was my guilt,” Dean says.

 

 

 

A few days later, when they discharge him from the hospital, Sam’s driving the Impala and Dean’s sitting at his side and they’re going home.

“Cas says that you got your act together,” Sam says. “Says you became the perfect devoted husband after I left. Says that you’re thinking of adopting a kid and maybe a cat and guinea pig, too, and that you cook him breakfast every morning and deliver it to him in bed.”

Dean swallows.

“Obviously, I didn’t believe him, Dean. Cas can’t lie to save his life and guinea pigs have been his wishful fantasy for the better part of a decade now. He thinks that we’ve been hiding them from him.”

Sam’s quiet.

“He didn’t visit you in the hospital,” Sam says, “because—”

“I wasn’t good to him,” Dean says.

Sam turns a corner.

“No, Dean. It’s because I didn’t _let_ him visit you in the hospital,” Sam says. “He tires out too quickly.” Sam pauses. “But you know what the doctors said about that. We should start looking for a supernatural cure—a sympathetic angel. Coming back from the brink of death—there was too much damage. He’ll always be weak, always ready to collapse at any momen—”

Sam cuts off. Maybe he just realizes that he’s talking to a heart patient because he amends then, “Cas’ll be fine for now. Don’t stress.”

There’s an awkward silence after that, one that only breaks with the occasional squeak from the Impala’s wheels as they turn more corners, as they drive on and get closer to meeting their destination.

It’s been months since they’ve seen each other.

After fifteen minutes, Sam starts talking again.

“I interrogated Cas until he cracked. He said that you force-fed him a lot of oranges and kept saying it was for ‘Vitamin See.’ He says that his eyesight isn’t any better but he thinks that he has acid reflux now.”

“Strengthening his immune system, Sammy,” Dean protests. “Had to start feeding him your salad crap for his own good.”

“Salad crap? Oh my god, Dean, I can’t believe that you’re still talking like that. You just had a _heart attack._ In your _forties._ ”

“I ain’t changing my ways,” Dean declares just as Sam says, “You have to watch what you eat.”

Their car ride isn’t awkward after that because all that Sam does is nag.

 

 

 

The bunker’s not unnaturally quiet like it usually it is. When they get there, there’s the sound of a hammer pounding away and out of the corner of his eye, Dean sees a ladder, and he’s already shouting, “Cas,” already pushing past Sam to rush to him because Cas and ladder only spell disaster when Cas regularly has to take sitting breaks just walking down the hall to the kitchen.

But it’s not Cas.

It’s Sam’s brand-new wife, Eileen.

He must have taken her by surprise because when she sees him, she drops her hammer and it lands on his foot and maybe, he cries a little.

“I’m sorry!” she says and then she signs to Sam, and Sam explains that she accidentally broke the frame of an old Men of Letters painting while she was idly tossing around a ball (she was too embarrassed to leave it as is and had been trying to fix it before their arrival).

“Okay,” Dean wheezes and he limps down the hallway.

There’s a crash behind him as Eileen’s picture frame-saving attempts fail.

Sam’s and her laughter echoes throughout the bunker.

 

 

 

Cas is teetering on his feet when Dean staggers into their room. Cas is shuffling through hangers in the wardrobe, one hand against the wall to steady himself, and he must have been standing a long time now because he looks utterly worn out.

“Oh,” he says when Dean shuts the door. “You’re here.”

Dean licks his lips. “Yeah.”

They gaze at each other from across the room. Dean doesn’t move away from the door.

Cas shuts the wardrobe.

“What were you looking for?” Dean says.

Cas averts his eyes, looks down at his feet.

“A nice shirt,” he says, “but all of them were yours.”

“You going somewhere?” Dean asks even though he knows that it’s not worth asking. The only reassurance that he’s had that Cas won’t leave him is because he can’t physically leave without help.

Dean feels guilty just thinking it.

“No,” Cas says. “I just wanted to wear something nice for you.”

Dean thinks that he might be having another heart attack.

 

 

 

Dinner feels like a party with four people, Dean thinks, even though two of them talk in a sign language that Dean doesn’t understand but will pick up soon enough, if only for eavesdropping purposes.

But this gives Dean the opportunity to talk to Cas—except that Cas doesn’t say much and every time that they look at each other, Cas seems a little breathless and that inspires a warm feeling within Dean.

“I’m making a meal plan,” Sam announces. “From now on, no more—”

Dean tunes him out.

He watches Cas eat instead.

Cas catches his eye and looks away shyly.

An hour later, Sam flips his clipboard and says, “Now I’m going to go over Dean’s exercise routine. I’ve calculated a quota of two hundred minutes a week, with a minimum of—”

“Oh, I can think of one way to fill that quota,” Dean says loudly and watches as Cas’ face flushes, except Dean wants him to blush harder, so he runs his foot up Cas’ leg under the table, trails a light touch up to his thigh.

Cas chugs down a glass of water and chokes.

Dean grins.

“Why are you feeling up my wife, Dean?” Sam says.

 

 

 

“Eileen and I are going to bed,” Sam says so Dean says, “Do I need earplugs?”

Sam throws an orange aimed for his head.

Sam doesn’t miss.

“I’m a heart patient!” Dean says just as he feels Cas’ hand clasp the side of his face.

“Are you alright?” Cas says, voice soft, and Dean forgets his indignation, forgets about everything except Cas’ touch, and the world goes quiet, and it’s not only because they’re the only two left in the room.

“I’m…” Dean says and he swallows and Cas is already retracting his hand from across the table so Dean grabs it and keeps it in place.

That’s when he feels the coolness of the ring that Cas wears.

Dean runs his fingers over it. Wants to trail kisses over Cas’ fingers but he doesn’t because he needs to ask—

“You forgive me?” Dean says and Cas says, “Yes.”

“You know what you mean to me?” Dean says and Cas hesitates and maybe he doesn’t believe what Dean’s said before, but then he makes a decision and he nods and he holds out his other hand, and Dean takes it, Dean clasps their fingers together and Cas says, “Yes.”

They rise from the table, meet on Cas’ side because Dean goes to him, and Dean wraps his arms around Cas’ waist, draws him in and Cas says, “I have something for you.”

Cas pulls something from his pocket and it glints in the light and Cas’ fingers hold Dean’s steady, even though Dean’s shuddering when Cas slips the ring onto his finger.

“I went with Sam two days ago for it,” Cas says, “and he assured me that you would like this one because of its feminine touch.”

“It’s awesome,” Dean says and Cas smiles.

 

 

 

“I wanna carry you,” Dean says.

“I can walk,” Cas says. “I’m not tired, Dean.”

They’re in the kitchen still, and Cas is sitting up on the counter, feet dangling over the edge and Dean is standing between Cas’ legs, has his arms around him and has Cas pressed to his chest, but they haven’t done anything except embrace each other like this—they haven’t even kissed.

“I wanna carry you,” Dean murmurs into Cas’ neck and Cas sighs and lets Dean’s lips brush his skin as Dean talks. “Like you’re supposed to. On a wedding day. I wanna carry you over our bedroom’s threshold.”

“I’m not a bride,” Cas says and Dean grins and he says, “But it’s my house, Cas.”

Cas smiles but it falters and then he says, “I was wretched to you on our wedding day,” and he has his hand fisted in Dean’s shirt and he’s upset, Dean knows.

Dean wants to say, “Doesn’t matter,” but he doesn’t—he just bites his tongue.

“It was a bad start,” Dean says and he remembers getting married. He remembers waking up and driving nervously to the registry office, not telling Sam, waiting for their turn, signing the papers and Cas had been so quiet, so distant that even the officiate hadn’t dared to wish them congratulations. They had come home, and Sam had discussed a case, and Cas had barely acknowledged Dean’s presence. As the day had worn on, every time that Cas’ eyes had set on him, Cas had looked as if he had been sentenced to death.

Come night, Cas had withdrawn completely.

Come night, Dean had crawled into bed, had wanted to kiss Cas but Cas had just turned away so Dean had just said, “Okay, let’s just sleep,” and Dean had lain back down, had closed his eyes, but—

He hadn’t been able to sleep.

Things had grown so sour after that.

“It was a bad start,” Dean says. “That’s why we need to start again.”

 

 

 

“You’ve carried me many times like this,” Cas says. “Many times to our bedroom.”

And Dean remembers that, and there’s a hollow feeling inside him, remembering the last couple of months, where Cas had been sicker than Dean’s ever seen anyone be sick, and even now, Cas feels too light in his arms, maybe even lighter than the last time, and it’s terrifying to Dean. It’s goddamn terrifying—they have to find him a cure.

They’re in the hallway approaching their room, and Dean’s holding onto Cas like he’s never going to let go, and Dean doesn’t want to, either, pulls Cas closer and Cas curls his head to lean on Dean, reaches up to stroke Dean’s face with his thumb, but his eyes are fluttering and he’s tired. Cas wants to sleep.

“I never carried you like this,” Dean says and for a moment, he stops in the hallway, and Cas keeps caressing Dean’s face with his thumb, but Dean’s face is stricken with guilt, and Dean swallows. “You’ve been sick and I only went through the motions back then but I—”

_I didn’t care. I didn’t care for you. I only cared for you when I thought you were gonna die._

_And then I was so scared. And then I remembered why I needed you._

_And then I forgot again_.

Dean’s too ashamed to admit it.

“Forget it, Dean,” Cas says, so unaware of what’s already whispering in Dean’s mind—that Dean doesn’t want to forget it, because he’s forgotten a lot of things, and he’s afraid if he forgets this, he’ll end up hurting Cas again. “It was only self-protection.”

“It wasn’t,” Dean says, through gritted teeth, and Cas doesn’t say anything this time, just lets him move with this on his own terms, and then he tilts his head up, kisses the part of Dean’s collar that peeks out from under his shirt.

Dean starts walking again.

When they’re just about to pass Sam’s room, Cas tenses, presses a hand to Dean’s chest right where Dean’s heart is, and his eyes flash, as if he’s just remembered something.

“Dean, you’ve only now come back from the hospital—set me down,” Cas says. “You shouldn’t carry me. Your heart—”

“Belongs to you,” Dean says and it’s the sappiest thing that’s ever come out of his mouth but he’s grinning and Cas breaks into a surprised smile.

There’s a shuffling sound from behind Sam’s door and Dean just knows it. He just knows that Sam’s heard him and he waits for the teasing, waits for the jokes, but they don’t come.

Cas’ fingers over his heart are tracing patterns, and it’s starting to become a competition, Dean thinks—a competition for the Biggest Sap of the Year award—because Dean’s pretty sure that it’s an ‘I love you’ that Cas is tracing over his chest.

“You should set me down,” Cas says again, quietly, but he looks utterly at peace and he’s relaxing to curl up against Dean’s body and they’re only a few feet away from their bedroom door, anyway.

“Let me carry you, Cas,” Dean says. “Let me carry you a little longer.”

 

 

 

They’re in bed, dark except for a small light in the corner that makes Cas’ skin glow a deep rich colour, and he doesn’t look pale in this light. He doesn’t look sick.

Dean’s lying pressed against him, has his cheek flat against the warmth of Cas’ stomach, and Cas has his fingers tangled in Dean’s hair, stroking lightly, has his other hand clasped in Dean’s, and Dean feels small, and Dean feels protected.

He hasn’t felt like that in ages.

Dean reaches then, for the edge of Cas’ shirt, and he lifts it up, kisses up Cas’ navel, and Cas’ breath hitches in his throat and his fingers pause in Dean’s hair.

Dean continues to lay kisses to his skin, moves to straddle him, and Cas has his hands firm on Dean’s hips, gasps when Dean leans to suck at the skin of his neck.

“Do you want to?” Dean says when he’s busy dragging his lips over the shell of Cas’ ear and Cas pants and Cas says, “Dean, Dean.”

They strip out of their clothes, lingering, caressing as they do so, and Dean finds himself on his back, Cas teasing a hot trail of touches up Dean’s legs and Dean squeezes his eyes shut and groans.

Cas lowers himself onto him, and Dean’s nails dig into Cas’ back, and Dean’s holding him and Dean’s not going to let go.

Cas presses his mouth to Dean’s jaw, presses it to his chin, presses it finally to Dean’s hungry mouth.

Their lips move then, wildly, passionately, in unison, and Dean thrusts his hips upwards, rolls them in a slow grind that makes Cas moan right into his mouth.

When they pull apart for air, Cas rests his head onto Dean’s chest, closes his eyes so Dean says, “Tired, Cas?”

“I’m worried about your heart,” Cas says and he places his hand over Dean’s chest again.

“I’m fine,” Dean wants to say but he doesn’t because the doctor told him to wait two weeks and Cas _is_ tired—Dean can see it.

They’re going to find a cure, Dean thinks. They’re going to find one soon.

They pull apart then, and Dean lies on his side, and Cas comes, presses his body up from behind and wraps an arm around him, holds him, and Dean can feel him breathing, can feel the hotness of Cas’ breath on his shoulder just before Cas kisses him there.

It’s peace, Dean thinks. It’s peace.

So he sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that's it! Thank you very much for reading and of course, comments and kudos are always appreciated if you've got the time. Other than that, if you'd like, you can visit me on Tumblr [here](http://60r3d0m.tumblr.com) :)


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